


Rose Water

by shirogiku



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Body Worship, F/F, Fluff and Smut, Happy Sex, Oral Sex, Perfume, Season/Series 03, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 22:20:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6489595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shirogiku/pseuds/shirogiku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Fragrance has seduced men and women alike since the dawn of time. It knows no distinction, masking the lines between harlot and queen, brothel and palace, and what is and what may be.</i>
</p><p>Or: Max and Anne at their happiest (between S2 and S3).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rose Water

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mistflarden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistflarden/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [mistflarden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistflarden/pseuds/mistflarden) in the [pirate_prompts_2016](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/pirate_prompts_2016) collection. 



> **Prompt:**  
>     
> This prompt isn't really specific, but I really want to read something about Anne and Max enjoying each other's company whilst naked. You can include smut, but don't feel pressured to!  
> I just want something sweet, them lounging around on bed, Max maybe brushing Anne's hair with Anne complaining but secretly loving it, and lots of casual, non-sexual, love filled touching. It can be as long or short as you wish.
> 
>  **A/N:** Hey, OP, I did include some smut, but it just sort of fit in there, and I tried to focus on the body worship :)

Fragrance has seduced men and women alike since the dawn of time. It knows no distinction, masking the lines between harlot and queen, brothel and palace, and what is and what may be.

Through its veil, the world can feel new. A scented handkerchief can take you by the hand and guide your steps like a dear friend, and a perfume box can hide more secrets than any treasure chest.

Max had always imagined the Garden of Eden as a riot of scents and colours and tastes, pure, unrestrained and untamable.

Fragrance had helped her fall back in love with herself, her body even before her new jewelry and clothing had done their part. Rose, bergamot, and jasmine in all their nuances were her favourites. If she had been born a queen like Cleopatra, she sometimes fancied, she would have ridden through the streets of her city showering her loyal subjects with flowers and gifts of incense.

She _could_ afford to spoil herself a little these days - otherwise, what would be the point? Having sorted out a particularly trying problem, she would reward herself with making her own perfume, always floral. Musks could be subtle too, but they were also heavy and what belonged in a candle-lit ballroom was almost never a good fit for Nassau.

“What’s that?” Max started at the question. “Home booze?”

“ _Ma chérie_!” She broke into a warm smile, pleased to see her. “You have sneaked up on me again! I wasn’t expecting you so early.” Or in the kitchen, for that matter. “And no, this is not a drink, this is rose water.” She picked up one of the roses that she had put aside for vase on the table, and brushed it against Anne’s cheek playfully. “How would you like to watch Max work her magic?”

“Mind the thorns, magic.” Her open, child-like curiosity was going right to Max’s heart. “Ain’t these things expensive?”

“Max likes expensive.” Gently, gently, she held up a petal between her two fingers, without ever bruising it. “First of all, the flowers that you use must be fresh.” When she had a garden of her own - a _proper_ garden - she would cut them just after the last morning dew. “Second, no stems or leaves.” It was a common mistake among the beginners.

Idelle was not a bad partner to experiment with (and occasionally on). There used to be a girl who boiled bugs with the blossoms, disregarding all advice. The rest was simply choosing the right pot and taking care not to add too much water.

“It must simmer,” she concluded. “ _Comme_ _la passion_.” She winked at Anne. “You cannot let the flames burn too hot, or it will all become steam.”

“Which is what’s gonna happen now, what with me distracting you.”

“Max knows how to do many things at once.”

Anne snorted. “And many people.” She paused. “Nah, that sounded better in my head.”

Max’s smile, never too modest, acquired a new edge of insinuation. “People _and_ things.” If Anne wanted anything more than the tantalising view, she need only to have a little patience.

“I don’t understand what all the fuss is about. ‘Perfumery’.” Anne said it like a foreign word. “Plain ol’ soap is good enough for me.”

Anne used to smell so harshly, of sea salt and near-masculine sweat, the scent that was just _her_ almost indistinguishable. It had become Max’s private quest to balance them out.

She brought a sweetmeat to her mouth and, catching Anne’s eye, took a dainty bite. As the sweetmeat disappeared, Anne’s stare grew heavy with impatience, barely restrained. So when Max offered to share the next treat, Anne bit her fingers pointedly.

The petals did not give up their essence all at once, tinting the water pink dollop by dollop. Max dipped in her finger and showed a drop of oil to Anne before rubbing it behind Anne’s ear.

Anne wrinkled her nose. “What am I, a fancy lady?”

“No, you are a prickly wild rosebush.” Her hair was just the right colour, too.

“Huh.”

While her love was trying to puzzle that one out, Max strained the water and split it into shares. The girls would appreciate having some.

“Two shares for the Captain,” Anne whispered, leaning in to wrap her arms around Max. “One share for everyone else.”

She grinned in delight. “What was that, _ma belle_? The first buds of a sense of humour, or do my ears deceive me?”

Anne picked her up, rose water and all, Anne’s intent unmistakable. She would have liked Anne to carry her in her arms up the entire flight of stairs, but there had to be a measure of reality in every fantasy.

It wasn’t that Anne _hated_ finer, more sophisticated things in life - it was that she was instinctively suspicious of them. Like so, she couldn’t be tricked into taking a long, self-indulgent bath without a show of discarded clothing.

But once the right mood had been set, she followed Max’s lead beautifully.

“Your skin never wrinkles, your eye paint never smudges,” Anne grumbled. “You must be secretly a mermaid.”

Max chuckled and splashed some bathwater at Anne, their knees bumping. She definitely needed a bigger tub, big enough for a pair of fishtails. “If you were a mermaid, what would you be doing? Would you be singing songs of the sea to me? Would you find sunken treasure for me?”

Anne lapsed into a pensive silence, then said briskly: “The pearls. I would’ve dove down and found Jack’s fucking pearls.” She met Max’s eyes. “Do you even know how many fucking times I’ve thought ‘bout it anyway?”

“Oh, Anne…” She reached out, interlacing their fingers and squeezing them together. “Let me wash your hair.”

Anne stood up too abruptly, the water splashing onto the floor on the either side of them.

Max’s focus strayed to Anne’s thighs, rippling with such strength, and the apex between them. “I do hope you aren’t thinking of leaving _now_ .” She fitted her mouth to each of the sharp hipbones in turns, her fingers kneading Anne’s firm buttocks. “Because it would be _terribly_ rude.”

She always wanted to touch, to feel and to share, but with Anne, she also wanted to _pamper_. She wanted Anne to fall in love with herself, to see herself as Max saw her: beautiful, powerful, and deserving of all the happiness in the world. It would be Max’s final gift to her, one that could endure even after the memories themselves lost their brightness and texture.

But she must not spoil the moment with those thoughts.

Anne’s hair had a life of its own, and a _significantly_ milder temper. Being allowed to touch it always felt like a privilege. Max imagined Anne bathing with her hat stubbornly on and couldn’t help a giggle.

“What?” Anne demanded, not yet fully relaxed.

“Nothing. I laugh because I am happy.” Her fingertips brushed over the scars on Anne’s back, feather-light. “Do these hurt still?”

“Nah, they’re from years ago. If every scratch hurt that long, I’d be a fucking mess.”

Max kissed them better all the same. Each scar and burn mark on Anne’s body was a reminder that she was stronger than her pain. A survivor. She should be proud of them, and never ashamed.

“This ain’t how you wash someone’s hair, Max.”

“Max’s house rules say you’re wrong!”

Fragrance is a powerful thing: it can change one mood for another with perfect sleight of hand, rouse a memory buried too deep. The memory of Max’s fingers massaging Anne’s foamy scalp would now forever be infused with roses and also bergamot.

As refreshing as it was welcoming, bergamot complemented the roses’ sweetness, and its oil brought the lustre to Max’s hair. She would put a drop of it on her palm and then rub her palms together for a bit before bringing them to her face. It would lift her spirits and clear her head, all the while the roses banished all sadness and melancholy. All but that which couldn’t be banished.

“ _Saffron_ ,” Anne suddenly said, with a dash of pride in her voice. “I know saffron! Jack said Cleopatra used it to stir shit up in her bed.”

Max chuckled. “What did I tell you about allowing the flames to burn too hot?”

She insisted on both of them getting dry before they moved on to bedplay, keeping her touches light and teasing. Anne caught her roaming hands, walking her backwards to where she wanted her.

“But Anne,” Max pretended to remember all of a sudden, “I haven’t washed your feet!”

The first time that she had done that, Anne had squirmed and fidgeted like a virgin sailor boy.

Now she was turning into one big, pretty red glare. “I _will_ dunk you, see if I don’t!”

“ _Bien_ , your glare is my command.” She let Anne drop them onto the bed. “But one last thing I must use.”

Jasmine oil. Jasmine was _the_ flower of Grasse, which was the capital of perfume.

“Where’s that? In France?”

“ _Oui_.” Her imagined Grasse was half Spanish Town half a French painting, and what she could not imagine, she substituted with Nassau sights.

She tipped a single drop onto her palm, Anne watching her unblinkingly.

“Do you really want to go there?” was Anne’s next question.

“ _Oui_ , why wouldn’t I?” The world was bigger than this island. Someday, she might be free to travel it and explore it like a lover’s body, without fear.

Anne leaned into her, kissing her shoulder. “We’ll go together, yeah?”

Max sealed Anne’s lips with hers rather than give her an answer, and cupped Anne’s breasts before trailing her mouth sinuously ever so downwards.

Anne sucked in a sharp breath as Max caught a nipple between her teeth. “You fucking _tease_.”

“If I do not tease you, who will?”

She nipped at the skin below Anne’s navel and climbed back up again to leave a love bite above Anne’s left breast, lavishing her attention everywhere _but_ where Anne wanted it the most. Anne’s knife-edge looks and choked-off curses followed in her wake like waves followed one another.

“We have time now.” She planted a feathery kiss on Anne’s ribs. “We should enjoy it to the fullest.”

Anne’s hand curled over the back of Max’s head, just keeping it there. “You sure are having _too_ much fun with this.” Her body was awash with heat, strengthening the scents and weaving them into a perfume of love.

No need for more words. Max ducked down and pressed an open-mouthed kiss between Anne’s legs, trading gentleness for firmness. She worked Anne into fiery sweat and fierier curses, Anne’s thighs trembling around her.

Anne’s heels dug into the mattress as her hips sought more of Max’s mouth, and Max pushed her tongue in as deeply as it would go. The intensity of Anne’s pleasure soon had them shuddering together at each crest. Max did not touch herself, relishing the contrast between the urgency of her own desire and that of Anne’s release.

“ _Enough_.” Anne forced Max up for a hard kiss and shoved her fingers down none too subtly.

Max smirked and fell apart in the space of the same breath, in Anne’s arms. Anne’s name was in her heart, but not on her lips - she kept it to herself, almost jealously. Another promise that she must hold back on.

Afterwards, she rested her head on Anne’s bony shoulder, wondering at the peaceful feeling that Anne could give her, for all of their past storms.

“You didn’t say ‘yes’ or ‘no’,” Anne prodded. “You could open your own perfume shop. Jack would advertise. And I’d… scare off any morons you don’t like.”

“Pose for a sign,” Max murmured drowsily. “With two mermaids on it.”

“ _Very_ funny.”

“We have today.” She nuzzled Anne’s neck. “Tomorrow is as tomorrow does.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“ _Les jours se suivent et ne se ressemblent pas_.”

Perhaps she would find a way for them to stay together without any heart-rending sacrifices. Or perhaps she would be more prepared to let go of these fleeting moments between them.

**Author's Note:**

> The last bit in French should be: "The days follow each other and don't look alike." = There's no telling what tomorrow will bring.
> 
> Comments are <3


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